Beginner’s Luck is B.S.

I went fishing a few days ago. I was lucky enough to head home for a quick break and headed out on the boat with my parents and brothers to catch some fluke off of Long Island, which I haven’t done in years. In case you don’t know, I’m an expert fisherman. So is my dad. So is my uncle, my neighbor, and the two guys that were on a boat near ours.

We’ve got the shiny multi-colored lures, the right kind of bait for that season and time of the day, and timing perfectly synchronized with the tides. We have the nifty reels and the big tackle box and perhaps most importantly, the best techniques for fluke fishing.

We caught nothing.

My 9-year-old brother, with his hand-me-down fishing rod, hook, and little piece of squid, brought it two nice ones.

But it’s so easy, almost natural, to discount the accomplishment of someone younger/less experienced by chalking it up to ‘luck’. The old guys used to treat my big catches like a miracle of pity from the universe when I was a little kid. And even though I know how much I resented it then, I found myself so quickly chanting “beginner’s luck” at my own brother’s achievement.

Oh, how easy it is.

It’s not luck. And you see 20-year-old kids starting booming businesses? You see the singer with a mediocre voice and decent-but-not-Beetles songwriting skills that is conquering the industry? How about the scrappy people that are building influential, world-changing things on the fly while other better-educated, more experienced peers in their field are stuck in a mediocre dead-end job?

It’s definitely not luck. But it’s also not skill (mostly). Otherwise, the most skilled people would always win, and we all know that’s not the case.

Shouldn’t the more experienced individual who’s more well-versed in their field create the more successful product? Don’t they know what works and what doesn’t work already?

Maybe the beginner’s advantage is just that - they don’t know any better.

A beginner has a short window of opportunity when they have no other choice but to create something relentlessly simple that solves a real problem. Is there a better definition of a successful product?

A beginner can’t get caught up in the cutting edge because they don’t know the cutting edge, nor do they care. They can’t get bogged down by the bells and whistles because they’re committing all their time to the basics. They don’t spend time and energy worrying about what will happen to their reputation because they have none.

So beginners, cherish this precious moment of your life. You’ll never be this way again. Don’t worry about what more experienced people in your field think. Take their advice and listen closely to their criticism, but don’t try and measure up to them. Worry about what your audience, or your customers think.

You can dive in, make (awful) mistakes, learn, repeat, and eventually win. The world may see the magazine cover and call it ‘luck’, but you’ll know what’s really going on.

Surely this is a prank.

Why I Love Hanging Around Startup People

Today was by most national standards, a rough day.

It was the stock market’s 6th-worst day in history. You can’t get away from the news.

Tonight, I went to Gemvara’s grand opening party for their new headquarters, met up with some friends, and met some new ones. Certainly a fun time.

But this is why I really love hanging out around startup people…

Not once did anyone mention the stock market. The first question people ask each other isn’t “so how much did you lose today?” It’s “what are you building?”

I’m tired of reading articles about Americans waiting for the jobs to come back. Waiting for the misery to be over. Waiting for someone stand on a podium and say “Alright everyone, all fixed! You now have permission to seek happiness again.”

Not this group. They are too busy building the future economy to be worried about today and tomorrow.

While the media looks for someone to blame along with most of the public, there are innovators taking the actions that so many say the government should be taking.

Except we don’t need permission from a piece of legislation.

We take action because we can’t not take action.

An Obsession with Finishing

So you have an idea? Cool.

You want to start www.nexthugedealtomakeyouabillionaire.com? You want to finally put together that book and get it published? You’re going to learn Italian? You want to get your cookie business off the ground?

Take comfort in this: you’re not alone. But take caution in this: you’re not alone.

You have an idea? So do I! So does my coworker, and brother, and best friend, and cousin. I love ideas. I almost wouldn’t rather talk about anything else. Substantial, world-changing conversations are based around new ideas.

But when you wake up the next day, after last night’s talk and the inner voice screaming “I need to do this,” what happens?

You start. That’s a big step. You dive in and get messy, true finger painter style.

But then comes the resistance, or the distraction, or the doubt. Something happens along the way to 95% of self-started projects that leaves them hanging out in the sun, and soon totally out of consciousness. I can think of 10 of my own things right off the bat that are just chilling out there.

There are obvious problems with not finishing:

• You don’t ever see the product of your time spent.
• You don’t ever gain any money, recognition, or satisfaction from your work.

But this is why not finishing what you start will kill you:

When you let a project go, just sitting without wrapping it up or blowing it up all together, it just simmers. It may not be on the very top of your mind, but it’s #3 or 4, and you feel the stress of it in different ways. It’s not the kind of stress you get when you’re pressed up against a deadline. It’s the stress that comes from a vague feeling of guilt that you can’t quite put your finger on.

As the half-written pieces of paper pike up, they just keep simmering. The first ones only slip out of consciousness when they’re pushed out by yet another group of guilt-inducing semi-developed ideas. It becomes a cycle - you realize that you left a project undeveloped, recklessly jump back into it, remember why you stopped, put it on hold again and start something else.

Eventually, the cycle blurs and even strips your identity. To the world, you are what you finish, and if you finish nothing, nobody knows who you are. You probably don’t know who you are.

An unclear identity leads to an unclear purpose, and I don’t need to tell you how dangerous it is to live without purpose.

This isn’t a lesson I’m pulling out of nowhere. It’s a confession. I’ve jumped into many things too quickly and gotten out of them too soon. This is a personal struggle, and I’ve found that lots of people share it.

So, if you find that this relates directly to you, I’d encourage you to take one of two steps, TODAY, to start finishing your half-written life.

1. Find the smallest project that you’ve left unfinished. Finish it today.

If you started doing it, it obviously held some sort of promise in your mind. It’s definitely not going to consume you with the same level of passion you had initially, but say “no” to new projects, just for a day, and get it done.

You might find yourself with a pleasant surprise, but even if you don’t, you’ll get a win. Little victories add up, and they get momentum going towards developing your obsession with finishing.

2. Declare Project Bankruptcy

If you’re buried beneath this stuff beyond the point of climbing out, just start over.

We tend to put a lot more value on our ideas than they’re actually worth, and as a result, we cling to them like gold nuggets. It takes a step of faith in your own ability to create new ideas, and a ton of willpower, to let everything go. But it might be the only option to actually start making progress again.

I Found the Next Big Thing…

From Boston Craiglist 7/14:

Facebook, Twitter, Google+ are a thing of the past once I run my idea by you.

I’m looking for a program coder who has ambition and drive that will eventually lead to being on FORBES magazine for companies to watch out for in 2013 and beyond.

I have no money to pay you. Think of it as voluntary work. With that said, I would only hope that after you hear my idea, this passion project will eventually start projecting numbers you’ve only day dreamed about while watching The Social Network.

Please don’t reply if you just like to tinker with program coding.

Only serious inquiries/coders will hear back.

College Is Not the Best 4 Years of an Epic Life

I’m tired of hearing about how college is “the best time of your life.” That attitude is a recipe for a pretty mediocre life.

The reality is, you have an amazing opportunity right now to make things happen. You have a precious, precious asset that the full-time working world is starving for - time.  You’re spending it somewhere, and don’t lie to yourself and say that every hour is taken up by schoolwork.

After graduation, you’ll reap what you sew during these college years. Will it be a real business? A growing fan base? A valuable network?

Or will it just be a hangover?

Back in the Day

If there’s one thing I wish I did more of at backyard parties, it’s talking to old people.

Their stories are rich and seasoned. Unlike one of my fresh, unfocused, shallow, still-unfolding stories, their experiences are remembered in the context of a whole life; a perspective that’s impossible to gain without hard-earned longevity.

Hearing a story from a twenty-something is like a newsflash (or a tweet), but hearing one from someone that lived through WWII is like taking a page out of a novel.

My stories are like candy, an old person’s story is a 5-course meal.

At a young age, when you’re in one of those ‘catching-up’ conversations, the natural conclusion is ‘what’s next?’ It’s a constant battle for your next talking point. You want to have an interesting life that leaves your friends envious and gives you excitement for the next step.

But when you’re in the golden years, while the story is by no means over, your story has meaning. The culmination of all the experiences and decisions you’ve made is sitting right there. No need to try and impress; you’ve lived and learned your tough lessons about pride that we kids still have to feel the consequences of.

This makes me wonder. With all of the stock that we put into blogs, and self-help books, and friends who are just as clueless as us, what if we started genuinely asking older people for advice instead?

I bet you would get your answer, and one that isn’t sugar coated by the desire to make you buy something, or give anything in return. Among those in your family, your church, your job, or social circle, you have such a valuable resource in older minds that most people leave untapped; mostly by generational discomfort or some misguided idea that what they know can’t be relevant today.

Technology has changed lots, but humans have not. The names in the headlines have changed, but the verbs haven’t. Most of our problems are human problems.

Old people rule.

Don’t Kid Yourself

Tiptoeing around the truth with someone is just as bad as telling them a big, fat, hairy lie.